


Sofia Vormuir's granny pants

by ms_cataclysm



Series: Winterfair Gifts [4]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Canon typical sexism and class prejudices, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 16:19:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3388241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ms_cataclysm/pseuds/ms_cataclysm





	Sofia Vormuir's granny pants

Sofia Vormuir had been up since just before dawn. She wasn't a good sleeper when she was pregnant anyway and she missed the warm bulk of her husband's sleeping body. 

Sofia had not expected a comfortable stay at Vormuir Castle. She knew her father's habits far too well. When she had run the castle for him, she had managed to tone his miserliness down to something which could be passed off as vorlike restraint and economy. Her sisters had done their best in their turn before they too had married and moved away. But the younger girls could barely remember how things used to be before Ma had died when the castle had been a home. How could they make things right when they couldn't remember what right had been like? 

Sofia sighed and reached for her clothes. Bless Duv for insisting on buying her that knitted silk thermal underwear . She hadn't been too pleased at the time – it was hardly the most romantic present to get from one's husband particularly when you weren't thirty yet – but then that was her Duv. 

She had not chosen him for romance ; it was hardly fair to expect it of him. And a fat lot of good romance had done for poor little Tallie. How she would love to tell Xav exactly what she thought of him for leaving her sister without a word of comfort or apology. He was thirty five ; old enough to know not to start what he couldn't finish, far too old to go goopy over a pretty seventeen year old . 

She blamed Dorca too. He should have brought Xav up as a full prince from the start or left him the way he was. What did Dorca expect would happen when he gave his prole son a prince's power and position without a prince's upbringing? Xav had left a trail like a winterfair rocket through vor society. 

She and Duv had been newly weds then, still unsure of their own places at the edge of court life. The new prince had seemed an adventurous, glamourous figure shaking up all the stupid pointless rules. She had smiled quietly to herself while her stuffy vor aunts passed on stories of the prince's latest escapade and thought her aunts silly old women. She had daydreamed of becoming part of the prince's intimate circle, sharing smart little suppers and impromptu moonlight troika races rather than the endless round of dull duty dinner parties with other young married couples. 

Now that brilliant young prince was the sleazy middle aged fool who had half Vorbarr Sultana speculating that her baby sister was damaged goods and the other half convinced of it . And she was a stupid, stuffy matron whose husband called her old girl and bought her granny pants while she pretended to be pleased with his thoughtfulness .

Sofia's wrath might have subsided harmlessly but at that moment, a drip of ice cold water landed on her nose from the leaky ceiling. Without that she might not have lost her temper completely. She jumped up from the bed and rushed into her clothes. She had had enough of being a polite, patient vor woman. 

First, she was going to rouse the house and get the staff working to smarten up the place . Then she was going to confront her father and tell him exactly what she thought of him for leaving his pregnant daughter to shiver in an unheated room in midwinter . Then she was going to put the fear of Sofia into her miserly father and his demoralised household and get them working to put on the reception of the century for the Vorkosigans because if they let Tallie's last chance of marriage slip, they weren't going to live long enough to see her cry. 

And when she had seen her sister betrothed to Selig Vorkosigan, she was going to go straight back to Vorbarr Sultana and throw those damn pants at Duv.


End file.
